Refining Your Team

Introduction

• •

  Emerging Research: A good organizational culture is characterized by effective use of available assets. In addition, people must have a chance to work individually and collectively to achieve objectives (Girma 2016). Employees must be capable of adapting to the constant change in norms, values, assumptions, attitudes, and beliefs. This flexibility is important because it improves job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is an important part of developing rapport, respect, and mutual trust between leaders and their people. It is always beneficial to try to adapt to the individual’s traits, preferences, and behavior. SOURCE: The relationship between leadership style and employee job satisfaction study of federal and Addis Ababa sport organizational management setting in Ethiopia (Girma 2016).

Tipping Point

Your plan for success relies on doing the extra discovery and administrative tasks that will reveal the good and bad about your team and its members. You manage your team’s interaction by determining how people are connected, and how they connect, and taking advantage of the information you find. Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point (2002) is perfect for this task. Gladwell’s book focuses on who people are and how they connect with each other. He explains that as a trend moves toward a tipping point, it is very often shepherded to popularity by a group of people who make things happen. He calls these people connectors, mavens, and salesmen. He goes on to identify several examples of past trends and events that hinged on the influence and involvement of connectors, mavens, and salesmen at key moments in their personal development.

We can use this knowledge for our examination of organizations and the people who work in them. We have events all the time and we need people inside the organization to help us achieve success and buy-in. When the team is going through yet another round of forming, storming, norming, and performing, leaders need champions who can help move the group to the right conclusion or action. The dynamic will be that connectors, mavens, and salesmen will take turns at the “head” of the discussion to give the team what it needs to move forward.

Not every team will have all three personalities. Some teams will have individuals that have more than one of these personalities. It is vital that leaders and managers try to discover the identity of these individuals. They should try to find this out as soon as possible. And they should energize the services of these individuals as soon as possible and as often as possible. Let’s take a closer look at these personalities.

Connectors are people with ties in many different realms. They act as conduits between these realms by helping to engender connections, relationships, and “cross-fertilization” that otherwise may not occur. Connectors are the “friend of a friend” people. They may not be the person who has the answer or who can provide the service, but they know first-, second-, and third-order connections who can address the issue. Connectors are adept at bringing people together for discussion. They might not always be able to seal the deal, but they can set up the meeting. This is the person who would be in charge of the holiday party.

Mavens have a strong drive to help other people by helping them make informed decisions. Mavens are the experts on your team. Either by education or continued service or just by life experience, they have the answers. They know what to do and they’ve done it before. When someone says, “Has anyone ever tried…,” mavens know the answer. Often, the maven is the one who tried it and can tell everyone about its success or failure. Mavens energize fact finding because they have so many facts. This is the person who would give you the details on points of contacts for the venues where you want to have the holiday party and for catering solutions.